The MRI scanner equipped with a superconducting magnet will offer unprecedented images of the human brain when it is fully developed next year, builders claim.
The imager's superconducting electromagnet is designed to produce a field of 11.75 Teslas, making it the world's most powerful whole-body scanner. Most standard hospital MRIs produce 1.5 or 3 Teslas, IEEE Spectrum reported.
The previous record for field strength was around 9.4 Teslas.
The development of the scanner, known as Imaging of Neuro disease Using high-field MR And Contrastophores (INUMAC), has been in progress since 2006 and is expected to cost about USD 270 million.
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The INUMAC will be able to image an area of about 0.1 mm, or 1000 neurons, and see changes occurring as fast as one-tenth of a second, according to Pierre Vedrine, director of the project at the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission, in Paris.
The wire in the INUMAC magnet is made from niobium-titanium, a common superconductor alloy.
To reach the required field strength, the electromagnet must be able to carry 1500 amperes at 12 Teslas and be cooled by super-fluid liquid helium to 1.8 kelvins.
The fully assembled magnet will be delivered by September next year, Vedrine said.